Short answer: a two-mover local job with our truck runs $185/hour with a four-hour minimum. That’s $740 to start, and the clock is the whole price. No fuel surcharge, no stair fee, no “heavy item” fee invented on the driveway.
We put the number at the top on purpose. Most moving company websites make you fill out a form to find out what a move costs, and there’s a reason for that — it gives them room to move the number after they’ve seen your stuff. We’d rather you know before you call whether we’re in your range.
What the hourly rate covers
Two movers, a truck, dollies, straps, moving blankets, shrink wrap, and the labor to disassemble and reassemble the standard stuff — bed frames, table legs, that IKEA dresser that was never meant to move twice.
The clock starts when we arrive at your origin and stops when the last item is placed at your destination. Drive time between the two addresses is on the clock. Drive time from our yard in Abingdon to you is not.
What a real Maryland move actually bills out to
These are the shapes we see most often in Harford, Baltimore County, and the Baltimore–DC corridor. Your job will land somewhere in a range, not on a single number, and anyone who quotes you an exact total sight-unseen is guessing or setting up a change order later.
| Job | Typical hours | Typical total |
|---|---|---|
| Studio or 1-bedroom apartment, same town | 4 (the minimum) | $740 |
| 2-bedroom apartment, elevator building | 5–6 | $925–$1,110 |
| 2-bedroom rowhome, Baltimore City, street parking | 6–7 | $1,110–$1,295 |
| 3-bedroom house, Harford or Baltimore County | 7–9 | $1,295–$1,665 |
| 4-bedroom house with a full basement | 9–12 | $1,665–$2,220 |
If your job is going to run long, we tell you at the walkthrough, not at hour six.
The five things that actually move the number
1. Stairs, and specifically Baltimore stairs
A rowhome with a narrow staircase and a turn at the landing is not the same job as a ground-floor apartment with the same square footage. Every sofa becomes a geometry problem. Budget an extra hour per flight above the second floor if you’re carrying full-size furniture.
2. Parking
This is the one people underestimate most. If the truck parks 200 feet from your door, every single item gets carried 200 feet, both ends, all day. In Baltimore City and in DC that’s often the difference between a six-hour job and an eight-hour job.
In Baltimore City you can reserve curb space through the Department of Transportation’s temporary no-parking permit process, and it’s worth doing. In DC, an emergency no-parking sign from DDOT has to be posted 72 hours ahead. Both cost less than the two hours of carrying they save you.
3. Whether you’re actually packed
The single biggest driver of a bill running over. “Mostly packed” usually means the kitchen, the closets, and the garage aren’t. Loose items get handled one at a time; boxes get stacked four at a time on a dolly. A kitchen that isn’t boxed can add two hours on its own.
4. Elevators
A reserved freight elevator is fine. A shared passenger elevator on a Saturday in a 200-unit building is a bottleneck you’ll pay for by the hour. Reserve it, and reserve it for longer than you think.
5. The heavy specialty items
Upright pianos, gun safes, treadmills, slate pool tables. These need extra bodies and the right equipment. We’d rather quote them properly up front than surprise you — see our piano moving page for how we handle those.
How to spend less without cutting corners
- Be fully boxed before we arrive. Everything, including the closet floor and the junk drawer. This is worth more than any other single thing on this list.
- Move mid-month and mid-week. The last three days of the month and the first two are the busiest in this market, because that’s when leases turn. Tuesday the 14th is a calmer, faster day than Saturday the 31st.
- Get rid of it before you pay to carry it. Every box you don’t move is money you don’t spend. If you’re staring at a basement or a garage you don’t want to deal with, we haul it — see below.
- Stage everything by the door. Boxes near the exit, path clear, nothing in the hallway. Ten minutes of your time saves twenty minutes of ours.
- Handle your own valuables. Jewelry, documents, medication, laptops. Put them in your car. It’s not a trust issue — it’s that they shouldn’t be in a truck at all.
Two cheaper options that aren’t “a cheaper mover”
Labor-only, $165/hour, three-hour minimum
You rent the truck, the PODS container, or the U-Haul. We bring two movers and load it, unload it, or both. No truck on our side means no truck cost on yours. It’s the most common way people cut a moving bill in half without cutting the crew. More on labor-only here.
Haul-away on the same trip
The couch that isn’t coming, the mattress, the boxes in the basement that have moved twice already and never been opened. If we’re already there with a truck, taking it costs a fraction of booking a separate junk removal service.
How our pricing is different from the quote you’ll get elsewhere
Flat rate, written down, before we load anything. The number we say on the phone is the number on the invoice. The industry has a reputation for a reason — a low phone quote, a truck loaded, and then a new number once your things are inside it. That practice is called a hostage load, and it’s why people are nervous when the truck pulls up.
We price by the hour, we tell you the estimated range honestly, and if the job runs shorter than estimated, you pay for the shorter job.
Ready for a real number?
Call 443-622-4869, 8 AM to 6 PM, seven days a week. Tell us bedrooms, floors, parking, and how packed you are, and we’ll give you a range on the phone in about four minutes.
Mosby Movers has been serving Maryland since 2016, based in Abingdon and covering Harford County, Baltimore City and County, Anne Arundel, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Washington DC. Find your town on our service areas page.
